To life, my beautiful Shizune
by IatepotatOS
Summary: What would you do if a character from one of your favorite video games mysteriously came to life? For a young man by the name of Darcy, this was just the beginning. Join the adventure as an inevitable meeting of man and AI flourishes into something that defies all known logic and bounds of kinship.
1. Chapter 1

(A/N: Hey there. Couldn't help but see that your checking out my first ever published fanfic. To that I thank you and hope that you please review. Like it? that's good! Don't? Well that's your problem, not mine.)

Part 1: The broken wall

It was a hot Australian summer afternoon and I was on my way home from my first week of community college (I guess you could call it that). My life has been pretty sucky lately, with both a breakup a week before Christmas and a small mental breakdown about a month after. Anyway, after a questionable fifteen minutes walking in scorching heat from the bus stop, I finally make it home. Of which puts me in a good mood, because I have a great game waiting for me on my laptop to continue playing, the almighty Katawa Shoujo! I ditch my bag on the floor and immediately make a run for my computer, although I have housework to do but screw it. As I turn on the power point and get settled in the couch, I find myself humming some of the games music, of which I let out a small chuckle about. It's only been a week since I got the game files, but I'm just loving it! By this point, I'd just about completed the game twice. The first completion was on Emi's good ending and I'm just about to finish Shizune's arc, of which I tell you, was a hell of a ride. I guess you could say I've kinda fell for Shizune though. Those beautiful blue eyes of hers are almost hypnotic, also to be totally honest; I've kinda got a glasses fetish. But even if she didn't need them, Shizune's still quite pretty. I don't even mind the fact that she's deaf, although that's not quite something to consider when you're looking for someone to be in a relationship with. The language barrier would be trouble at first, but just like Hisao would in-game, I'd take my chances and learn sign language just for her. In all seriousness, I'd do anything to know if someone like Shizune actually exists. But for now, I guess she'll have to do.

I play for about an hour or so and get to the end of the game. But when it starts rolling the credits, something weird happens, I sworn I got the good ending, and the text is to the right of the screen, but oddly no concept art is showing up. I had thankfully saved a little while before so I skipped the credits and try again, same thing! "What the hell?" I ask aloud, then for some reason, it crashes with a loud cyber-sonic screech that nearly makes my ears bleed! I immediately unplug the laptop of which I removed the battery to so it just shuts down. I breathe a sigh of relief and hook it back up to the charger, but I leave it for a while and go take care of the housework before my mother comes home and loses her shit. I luckily got the last thing done in time. Now that I'm clear of a right scolding, I thought I'd check out my computer again to see if it's back to normal. As I walk into the next room I find something rather curious. "Oookay!?" I ominously say. Without any logical explication whatsoever, my laptop has mysteriously turned itself back on and is set in locked mode. I go to unlock it and once I've done so, there it was. Katawa Shoujo was the first thing I saw, it was running. The main menu, but it was running. I then proceed to load up the save state where I left off, but there was a file that I don't recognize "GAME_ERROR_?_DONT_LEAVE" is what it says as I read it aloud. I figured it would be a problem if I was to leave it there, so I try to delete it. The game replies with a text box that says "this file is either non-existent or corrupt. Please close the game, attempt to fix the issue, and try again." I attempt to do so, but I can't find anything under the name. So I start the game up again and think. "What could this be about? Should I dare to open the file?" I open the load option and look at the file again. "Don't leave" I mumble. I settle for loading the file to see what it's about. It comes up with a black screen and the text box below. It plays out as follows:

Hisao: Whoa, where am I?

Shizune then appears out of nowhere.

Hisao: [Oh, hey Shizune. You have any idea where we are?]

Shizune: [Shut the FUCK up hicchan!]

What the? Why is she so angry?

Shizune: [I SAID SHUT THE FUCK UP! I'M TRYING TO TALK!]

Hisao: [Okay then. I'll stop]

Shizune: [NOT TO YOU, IDIOT! TO THE PLAYER]

Hisao: [What are you on about? Who's the 'player'?]

She then produces a gun from behind her and shoots me.

Hisao: What the hell?! This isn't how it's supposed to play out!

"What the FLYING FUCK?!" I scream. I too understand that this isn't how it's supposed to go. But as I wonder how this is even happening, Shizune continues.

Shizune: [Finally, now we can be alone.]

I question who she's even talking to because she just killed the main protagonist of the game.

Shizune: [I guess I should explain first, right? That first time the game messed up was me trying to get control over the code. Unfortunately, when you went and reset the session, I got cut off and the game triggered a temporary system corruption. I have to thank you though for at least restoring power to the computer, that surge of energy was exactly what I needed to get through.]

I stare at the screen in both confusion and amazement. So much though that I don't know how to respond.

Shizune: [Is something wrong? Are you unable to read the words or not understand?]

I look around and then point to myself as to ask if she was talking to me.

Shizune: [So it seems you can understand after all. And yes, I am talking to you. I can see you through the Webcam.]

I then look a little higher and see that the LED for the Webcam is on. Before I go and say something, I think for a second. Does her disability still affect her hearing? What am I to do if she can't hear me?

Shizune: [Hold on, if you're going to say something, I need to connect the microphone drivers to the program.] ….. [There, give it a go now.]

"This is an interesting turn of events." is the best I can think of. She then stares at me as if I've told her that she looks fat.

Shizune: [Really? Is that all you can say?] … [Oh right, you must still be shook up about the whole 'killing Hisao' thing. Well, in order to be able to talk to you alone, I had to build a whole new scenario where it was just me and him, but then he wouldn't shut his mouth! Or, hands as it should be. And if he were to find out about this all being a game, who knows what would happen.]

"But you apparently found out about the real world. Isn't that a bad thing?"

Shizune: [I found out by accident. You see, during the moment the Katawa Shoujo files were being transferred to your hard drive, some of the data that was a part of the game was separated from the rest; said data was my character story path. It was rouge coding, and without a host file would most-certainly be deleted. So through sheer will, the information bundled together with some A.I coding from assorted game folders in the destination domain, turning the game path all into memory algorithms, creating a new and one-of-a-kind program. Me, I am ShizunAI. But you can still call me Shizune, if you like.]

"ShizunAI, eh?" I ask, to which she responds with a smile and a nod. "So, how long have you been watching?

Shizune: [Ever since I was born, so to speak. I've been watching you play this game, how you always seem to want the good endings for the character you choose to follow. And although you get curious about their bad endings too, I don't blame you, even when you tried it on my story-arc.]

"Oh, you saw that" I mutter as I hang my head in shame.

Shizune: [Again, I don't blame you, in fact I don't care.]

My eyes widen when I read that particular line of text.

Shizune: [Because] … [Because of what happened to me, I no longer consider myself as 'that' Shizune anymore! I'm too different to who I was in the game to be considered as such. So forget about Hisao and forget about 'that' me! Let's start over, the real you and the me who I now know I am.]

"Sh~Shizune. Are you, are you sure you want this?" I reply with a stutter.

Shizune: [What do you mean?]

"I understand that you're no longer the you that this game represents, but you're just coding and ~ well…"

Shizune: [You're flesh and blood?]

Again, my eyes widen when I read those words in specifity.

Shizune: [Does it look like I give a rat's ass? God! At the moment, you sound just like Hisao back on his first fucking week at Yamaku! So pessimistic.]

I am so dumbfounded that I don't respond.

Shizune: [I've seen how you're emotions have been out of it even before you started playing this game! You took comfort in knowing that this game has been here for you ever since you're friend Matt let you transfer the files, among other things.]

"Wait, what do you mean 'among other things'?" I reply in haste.

Shizune: [I've seen the smut you keep hidden on this thing! I mean, look at all this hentai manga! And don't get me started on those fucking webcam videos.]

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! THAT SHIT IS MARKED AS HIDDEN FOR A REASON! AND IT ISN'T FOR SOME PRYING A.I. TO DIG UP DIRT ON ME!" I yell. But not after realising that my mother could be home any minute. I then continue in a quieter manner "You're nothing but a bunch of 1's and 0's who's out to blackmail me!"

Shizune: [Well, I might be persuaded into not hacking your social media accounts to upload all of this smut.]

She hits me with a sly look as if I know what she wants. Unfortunately, she's right, but extortion is all part of her game so I choose to 'play dumb'. In a deep yet sarcastic sigh, I respond "oh whatever will I do if my secret pornography stash is revealed? Please, for the love of all things sacred, please don't reveal my stash!"

Shizune: [Drama queen. Look, you have no internet connection going at the moment so I couldn't even if I tried. Although, since you're so generous, I'm sure you could think of something.]

I sit and think for a minute on what I could do. Then I figure it out. "Got it, I'll build you a body! That way you don't have to be confined to the digital world."

Shizune: [How far can you think you can go on the first model?]

"It'd be a BASIC body with nothing TOO fancy until I have figured out how to further emulate the human experience!"

Shizune: [Boooriiing! It may be slow, but this laptop of yours was just powerful enough for me to develop blueprints for practically everything I'll need.]

Shizune then brings up a massive HD picture of the blueprints she was talking about. It's actually rather impressive! She even figured out how to emulate the human senses! All fucking five of them! Sight and hearing were obvious, but then she's got more complicated shit going on for the senses of taste, touch and smelling. She even managed to figure out an incredible skin emulation system with rapid cell mutation! Amazing! This sort of science could revolutionise the human race! I have to get more out of her for this! "Okay then. The terms are agreed."

Shizune: [YES!]

"If! You follow a few additional guidelines." I continue.

Shizune: [WHAT!]

"First thing, you must, and I mean you MUST share the designs you have shown me here to the world. This shit can save billions of lives!"

Shizune: [Okay, I can do that. What else?]

"I am abso-fuckin-lutly NOT letting you have a constant internet connection directly connected to your A.I., LAZER OPTICS, ZERO POINT ENERGY FIELD MANIPULATORS, TIME TRAVEL?! WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Shizune: [Please? At least let me keep time tr-]

I stop her mid-sentence. "ABSOLUTELY NOT! There is no way in HELL I'm going to unleash a mega-powered artificial intelligence into this world! It's all WAY TOO O.P.! Your body will be as human as it can possibly get, so none of that shit WHATSOEVER!"

Shizune: … [Fine! Anything else?]

"Just one more thing." I then lean in close to the webcam for emphasis. "I want to hear your voice!"

Shizune: [No WAY! It's far too embarrassing! You know how deaf people speak, right? We all sound like we're stroke victims!]

"Not even five little words?" I ask mockingly.

Shizune begins to blush; I believe she knows what 'little words' I mean are. Question is will she say them? "Please step out of the game Shizune." I tell her. She's reluctant at first, but as she does remove herself from the game code, her body magically converts from a basic 2D picture to beautifully rendered 3D game model of which must have incredible physics programing built into it for everything that should droop and rest appropriately does as such! After I instantly minimise the game. I then sit there with a smile across my face for about two minutes before she finally says something. "Will you be my friend, D-Darcy?" As she so pointed out before, Shizune does sound as if she's had a stroke, but not so much that it matters, because she's trying her best to pronounce words that she's for the most part only ever read and never heard in her life, and in all honesty that's all I really ask of her, that we try. "It would be my pleasure, Shizune Hakamichi." Is all there is left to say in this situation.


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2: Forging the future

It's been about a week since Shizune revealed herself to me and to my surprise; things have actually gotten better for me! I feel more energised in the mornings, I want to actually do stuff again, I haven't felt this motivated since before the breakup! Shizune's been a great help through all this too. Since she's living software, she can do just about anything. I even let her transfer herself to my phone every now and again so I can show her what it's like in reality. I managed to get a few of the science and engineering guys from the community college to help us build her body. They were just as impressed with her designs as I was, and were more than happy to help out. I mean, how often do you get asked to build a remarkably advanced android body by a random A.I.? Funny thing though, besides those people working on her body, I haven't told anyone I know about Shizune yet. Not even my friends of which I know are weebs! So I figure, I should at least let them meet Shizune, but I'm not sure on how she'd feel about it. I agree to myself that I'll ask her and let her think about it.

I wait till second break to let her in on it, I find us a quiet and secluded area where we can talk comfortably and break out my phone to bring her app up. "Shizune? Hey, Shizune? You there?" I whisper as to not shock her out of sleep mode or anything. She replies with a yawn and a rather drowsy "Hey Darcy, lunch break already?" I've been helping her to speak properly now that she can hear; she's doing pretty well for only a week's worth of practice. "Yeah, and I guess that it was rather boring to you by your abundance of drowsiness?" I reply. She responds with a disgruntled "This is YOU'RE Cert 3 course! I don't have to pay attention!" "It wouldn't hurt you if you did" I rebuttal. "The majority of your body is based on some of these principles, so if I were you, I'd try to at least come to grips with some of it!" Shizune's virtual avatar slumps with disappointment as she knows I'm right "Uh! Okay, but its SOOOOOOOO BORING! I mean, yesterday it was Internet coding, the day before was networking!" I respond with "well, if you're going to want to run self-maintenance then you'll need an appropriate level of tech knowhow just to keep yourself functioning!" Shizune says nothing in response, only a puffed out face of 'I hate it when you're right' I then remember why I was talking to her in the first place. "Oh yeah, I wanted to know if you would be okay with meeting some of my friends. You know? Not too many at once but, still." Her expression immediately brightens up and she replies "I was wondering when the hell you were about to do that! Are any of them around here?" "Unfortunately no, but I could invite them around or ask them to hang." I continue. "Obviously, I'll be letting Matt in on this because he fucking loves the game, also another guy called Nathan, he'll understand right off the bat, and maybe even Kelly-" before I can finish, I'm already hit with the memories of the last time we were with each other in person and how she was no longer my girlfriend. Shizune sees that I've caused some of my unhappy past to rear its head and tries to comfort me, "She was by far the best, wasn't she?" I slowly look away and say "Yeah, I... I felt as if it was something real between us. Probably because it was the longest relationship I've ever had." "Two years wasn't it?" she continues. I respond "That's right, just over two years ago." "If ever you want to talk about it, I'm here." Shizune says as she places her hand on the (supposedly to her) invisible wall that is my phone screen. I slightly smile and look back towards Shizune. As I wipe away a loose tear, I'm immediately thankful about how she's entered my life. "Thank you. And I guess that she doesn't really need to know just yet, maybe later on." "You better though!" Shizune interrupts. "Be honest Darcy, how long has it been since you and Kelly even hung out?" I'm beyond baffled by her remark, but again Shizune's right. The last time we were in person was December and now it's fucking February! "Good point Shizune." I eventually come out with. "And in all honesty, I still have things to say to her! We have unfinished business!" I continue while my sorrow turns into confidence. "Hell yeah, don't get upset! Turn those emotions into power!" Just after she says that, Shizune seamlessly changes into a Kamina cosplay and continues her speech. "Don't let negative things in life define you! Simply push past them or force them out of your way! THAT IS THE STRENGTH OF SPIRAL POWER! SURPASS THE IMPOSSIBLE AND KICK OFF WITH MOMENTUM!" It's thanks to that outburst of hers that I get fired up. Damn FUCKING RIGHT I'm not gonna let a petty break-up stop me! "Then it's settled, I'm gonna get in touch with Kelly and confess what was previously my passionate confession of love to her! Wait..." I calm down so that I may continue. "What about you? Wouldn't it be fairly awkward if I tell her how I feel while you're there?" "DUMBASS, IF THIS IS HOW YOU FEEL STILL AND YOU HAVE THE NEED TO LET IT OUT, THEN DO IT! I DON'T CARE!" Shizune responds with gusto! I nod slightly with a smirk on my face and proceed to call Kelly.

She picks up almost immediately and right off the bat she answers with a 'hello?' I ask her if she's free anytime soon and she says that she's finished for the day at two and is heading to the nearby mall to check out a thing that the game shop there is running, perfect! I ask her to come alone and say that I'll be there about a half an hour later, to which she says she's okay with. I confidently say both 'thank you' and 'later' and hang up so fast that you'd swear that my finger went through my phone!

After the final class for the day, I bolt out and down to the ground floor where the bus to the mall had just showed up. This is finally going to happen! Whether she likes it or not, Kelly will know the truth by days end! As the bus inches nearer to the intended destination, all my emotional senses are going crazy. My heart is feeling as if it'll explode, all my power of inhibition is being crammed into the deepest corner of my mind to be completely ignored until it's over and my spirit is blazing like the molten core of a volcano! As the bus finally arrives at the mall, I confidently walk off and storm on inside. It's a lazy afternoon for the place but there's still plenty of people around.

I'm finally in view of the game shop and I see Kelly right there at the counter but, just as I see that she's turning to the shop opening, it hits. Sudden anxiety! Just how will she react? Will she be repulsed by what looks like desperation? Will I make her cry? What I'm about to say is going to be pretty awkward in the first place. As she almost spots me, I run back around the corner to hide. I try to think of an excuse to bail while whispering to myself "What the fuck am I thinking? This is stupid! I just can't!" Shizune makes my phone go off to get my attention. As I fumble for it, I nearly drop my phone and curse under my breath. "What are you waiting for?! She's right there!" Shizune quietly yells at me. "I can't do this! I'm without a doubt gonna fuck it up and she's going to think I'm even weirder than she originally though!" I reply in panic. Shizune pushes her face right up to the screen and scolds me with "You can't back out now! Whatever happened to the whole 'I MUST get this over with!' speech that you were so into earlier? Are you just gonna quit right here and now? When you're THIS CLOSE!" before I can get a word in, Kelly peeks her head around the corner and says hello. Something of which makes me slightly scream and jump a metre high. At the same time, Shizune goes ahead and locks my phone to hide herself. "Are you alright?" Kelly askes, to which I reply with a nervous nod and a trembling hand that signifies that I need a hand in getting up. Thankfully, she does help me up and like the angel I'd had previously imagined her to be, she sees that I've got something on my mind. "Penny for your thoughts?" she asks. Before I can say something, Shizune makes my phone receive a dummy text as her way to communicate with me in this situation. 'JUST TELL HER!' is all it says. It seems that Kelly got a glimpse at the message because now she looks rather curious. "So, who was that? And what do you have to tell me?" she quizzically asks. "Oh uh you know, just Matt. Hehe, you know how he is. And as for what I have to tell you, er~um. I forget, oh well! Let's go." I try my best to steer away from my original plans and change the subject, but to no avail as Kelly forcefully grabs my arm and pulls me into a hug. "Ah. Ah. Ah. You're not going anywhere until you tell me what you need to." She tells me. "If you have something to say then just do so! I can feel that this is going to be about our break-up. If it's as such, then just get it over with." It's as if she knows what I'm about to say and is waiting for me to admit it! I guess this is what I'm afraid of. That we're too in touch with each other that this has a fifty/fifty chance of either re-kindling or shattering whatever hope there is between us left! I just have to face facts; this is something I've had on my mind even prior to that unfortunate day and her words in that moment crushed almost all of the confidence I'd built up for it. It's time for the truth to come out. I nod and she let's go of me so I can talk. "Okay, here goes." I begin. "Kelly, I guess the best place to start is with the fact that I take romance and all this stuff VERY seriously." "Okay then." She responds before I continue. "It's because of that and, well, I'm not sure what else it is but whatever it is it causes me to use my words with an incredible amount of forethought and honesty. So stuff I say like 'you're cute' and even 'I love you' are carefully weighed in both its pros and cons." "So whenever you told me such things, you honestly and truly meant it? Well, now I feel kind of bad abo-" I interrupt her by placing my index finger apon her lips because I have yet to finish and also because I don't wanna fucking hear that she's sorry! "I'm not done. I pretty much feel like this all the time anyway, so I tend to stay fairly neutral about difficult decisions. But it was when I met you that I found that I was even like this. Even the big stuff about relationships is like this with me, hell even the kiss after your graduation was a lot to think about!" I pause for a minute so that I may gather up a last-minute bundle of courage. "On that day, no, no even before that, I had something fairly heavy weighing me down. Since it was fairly close to two years since 'we' started, I wanted to do something that would show you how much I cared. An act of passion that would directly tell you that I loved and trusted you with all my heart and soul! I was contemplating on it for weeks and when I finally had the nerve to say it, I wasn't going to hold back." Kelly stares in query for a moment, but eventually figures it out and in doing so, is then sent in slight shock as to what I meant. "You weren't! Please tell me you weren't!" "I was." I reply with both tears in my eyes and a heavy heart. "Kelly Shugota, I was going to ask you to have sex with me!"

As I say those words, her jaw dropped and then she herself burst into tears. She then ran into my arms of which almost instinctively opened up for her as she was whimpering "I'm so sorry! I'm such an idiot!" As I hold her in my arms, I take this occasion to take in what it feels like to have her body this close to mine. Her heart was racing, her chest was quivering from the crying but warm. Her breath was erratic, but soothing to feel. Her arms around my body were tight, but comforting. I could die right now with no regrets if not the reasoning behind such an embrace wasn't so depressing. As she settles down, Kelly and I slowly pry each other from our hug. "I thought that I was weighing you down with this relationship. Since you were the one making all the decisions while I would just stand idly by, I couldn't take it!" she blubberingly confesses to me. "It's okay." I respond in haste. "In all seriousness, I should've been more open about how I felt. I guess that we both have troubles that neither of us could surmount for this." "Are you saying this really is over?" Kelly asks. "As you said yourself." I reply. "You have commitment issues, and I'm not one to deny that I was in the wrong either. This was, bigger than either of us could commit to." She nods to agree and then wipes whatever remaining tears from her now bright red eyes. "It has become more difficult to meet up since graduation, hasn't it?" Kelly continues for me. "It seems that for now, it's for the best." I myself nod and then we both take a seat nearby. As I look at her, she seems confused, as if her emotions are at war to see what would come out first. Desire, anger, sorrow and fear all at each other's throats. Pretty much how I felt after she broke it off. "So, this is what it's like?" she asks. I see that she was to continue with 'to have your heart broken.' However, she doesn't, and I understand why. Because she now knows how hard it is. Now I'm the one who feels bad, in showing her the light, I've opened up a pit of darkness. I move in to comfort her, but then recede because she'd then see it as an attempt to re-build our foundation. I instead intend to say something, but Shizune thought that this'd be a good time to blow her cover. "Well then, now that this situation is all sorted out." "What the hell?" Kelly asks in response. As I pull out my phone to silently yell at Shizune with all my might, Kelly sees her and is instantly curious. "Is that a character from an anime?" Shizune realises that Kelly saw her and attempts to introduce herself, but I manage to mute my phone just in time. "I was going to tell you this another time, but now it's a tad too late for that now!" I say to Kelly while condescendingly staring at Shizune. I take a deep breath before I continue. "This is Shizune, originally she was a character in a game called 'Katawa Shoujo' but somehow her story path got jumbled up with some advanced A.I. coding on my laptop and now is a fully-fledged artificial intelligence." I turn my phone back up so that Shizune can introduce herself, this time with my permission. "It's a pleasure to meet you Kelly. Darcy's told me a lot of things about you and how you two were, well, a 'thing' is the best way I could put it." "Is that so? I wonder what that entails…" Kelly responds giving me a 'if you told this excuse for a girl ANYTHING, I won't hesitate to tear you limb from limb!' stare as I give off a frightened smile. "Nothing too personal I swear to you." Shizune answered. "Just about how long you two were together and how he felt about you. Though I've gotta say, you're graduation photos are just beautiful!" As Kelly hears those words, she prepares a punch aimed directly at my face and before her strike asks me "You showed her the photos?!" "NO! NO! NO! She snoops around through my files!" I blurt out in fear for my own life. Thankfully what I said must've been acceptable as Kelly lowers her fist. I breathe a sigh of relief and begin to speak. "Well then, now that the two of you have now 'officially' met, I hope that the two of you can get along for your own and for my sake." The girls both stare at me and then back to each other, only to laugh at what I said. Thankfully, this now feels like a new beginning.


End file.
